ABSTRACT

The cross-cultural requirements of the study largely dictated the level and type of stimulus material to be used. It is clear that absolute equivalence in stimulus presentation is impossibility. Thus, the question accounts for both stimulus equivalence and equivalence of meaning in advance. The question can be changed to suite each country's system of social control. A model of deviance has been posited, and that model issues directly from Western sociological theory. The majority of studies measuring attitudes to deviance have used brief verbal descriptions of the acts. The problems of organizing and implementing cross-cultural survey research in criminology are enormous. Organizational difficulties may also affect the timing of a cross-cultural social survey. Cross-cultural research in any discipline involves the discovery of a common ground between differing cultures on which to base meaningful comparisons. It must be said that the cross-cultural interpretation of the meaning of responses to questionnaires provides us with the greatest challenge.